The climate in Las Vegas wasn’t trying good. The plan had been that every worker of YC-backed Bucket Robotics would carry components of their sales space of their baggage to the 2026 Client Electronics Present. However CEO and founder Matt Puchalski didn’t wish to take the probability that one (or all) of their flights can be delayed. So he rented a Hyundai Santa Fe and packed it up.
“It was… it was tight,” he mentioned with amusing on the present ground.
It took 12 hours driving within the rain, however the gear – and Puchalski – made it safely to Las Vegas, and so started the younger firm’s first-ever CES.
San Francisco-based Bucket Robotics was simply one among hundreds of corporations exhibiting on the annual tech convention, a speck of sand on a seaside filled with merchandise and guarantees. However regardless of its modest setup within the automotive-focused West Corridor, Puchalski mentioned the journey was value it.
A part of that was a willingness to be tireless, observant, and at all times able to pitch.
An engineer by commerce, Puchalski spent a lot of the final decade engaged on autonomous autos at Uber, Argo AI, Ford’s subsidiary Latitude AI, and SoftBank-backed Stack AV.
At these jobs, Puchalski developed deep connections within the automotive {industry}, and we crossed paths all week.
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October 13-15, 2026
There he was at an {industry} networking celebration one evening. On one other evening, in my resort foyer at 10 p.m., he was debating the best way to stability high quality and manufacturing yield with Sanjay Dastoor — founding father of mobility startups Skip and Boosted, each of which additionally received off the bottom at YC.
However I first bumped into Puchalski throughout breakfast on the resort. Seated on the desk subsequent to me, he and gross sales affiliate Max Joseph have been working by means of preparations for the convention’s “Media Day” over (allegedly) cage-free eggs.
Puchalski’s verve piqued my curiosity, and after making an intro, he advised me what Bucket Robotics is as much as. Earlier than I knew it, he had cracked open a vivid yellow Pelican case and I used to be holding a small piece of plastic.
Began as a part of YC’s Spring 2024 batch, Bucket Robotics is all about utilizing superior imaginative and prescient methods to do high quality inspections, particularly for surfaces. The objective is to automate a menial process that Puchalski joked is normally completed by “dudes in Wisconsin,” and to speed up the broad, multi-industry effort to onshore manufacturing.
One instance Puchalski supplied was automotive door handles. It’s a component prospects contact day-after-day, so it must be structurally sound, and that sort of high quality inspection is mainly solved.
However it may be difficult to verify the floor is flawless. Is the colour proper? Are there any burn or scuff marks? These are the questions Bucket Robotics desires to reply.
“It’s deeply laborious to automate all these challenges with out enormous volumes of knowledge, so auto producers simply throw dudes in Wisconsin at this downside,” he mentioned.
Bucket Robotics solves that knowledge downside by working from the CAD information for a specific half. It then generates a bunch of simulated defects – burn marks, bumps, breaks – in order that its imaginative and prescient software program can detect these issues shortly on a manufacturing line.
There’s no want for guide labeling, and the corporate claims its fashions can deploy “in minutes” whereas additionally adapting if merchandise or manufacturing strains change. One of many large promoting factors to this point is that Bucket Robotics can combine into present manufacturing strains with out including new {hardware}, Puchalski mentioned.
This has already attracted prospects in automotive and in protection, establishing Bucket Robotics to pursue the more and more common path of turning into a “dual-use” firm.
When the present ground opened, the primary two hours have been “intense,” Puchalski mentioned. Attendees in fits snooped across the startup’s tables, plucked orange stickers with the Bucket Robotics emblem, and quizzed the workers about their tech.
Extra importantly, Puchalski mentioned the extent of curiosity stayed constant all through the week. He had “actual technical discussions” with individuals from the worlds of producing, robotics, and automation. He mentioned Friday that he’s spent the week since the present on follow-up calls with potential prospects and traders.
CES generally is a slog, however Bucket Robotics survived. Now comes the precise laborious half: constructing a enterprise, scaling, fundraising, and hanging industrial offers.
As for the “dudes in Wisconsin,” Puchalski doesn’t see his firm as a risk to their livelihoods. These jobs are simply as a lot about recognizing defects as they’re about figuring out the basis reason behind the issue, he mentioned.
And moreover, Puchalski added, automating floor high quality inspection is one thing that the manufacturing {industry} has been making an attempt to do for many years.
“So once we go to our prospects, it’s extremely thrilling,” he mentioned.
